I just want to say …I use to donate grocery to thai monestry every Sunday..but I found out that vegetable i donated do not get used all …some might be get spoiled. And thai people prefer thai ingredients. So I decided to donate a specific amount to monestry donation box I will write it is for food and electricity …
It is always good to ask the monks or committee what the monastery needs rather than guess. We get these 8-requisite packages all the time. They are very expensive for locals to buy and if it is the average type, it is useless. For instance, the bowl is fake.
In Thailand they are called monk buckets.
In Myanmar, they are called monk baskets.
Then these items eventually get sold back to the store.
In sri lanka the monks usually donate to the main cetiya in Anuradhapura .. then “they” sell back to the store or wholesaler, and the cycle continues.
When donating non-material goods, it is best to make sure it is done in an allowable way. If you give a cash envelope to a monk, it is his personally and not for the monastery. Even if you write “for food”, it is for him to personally use for food.
Even if you give to Sangha, the monks can have a meeting and then decide split the cash in equal parts for themselves. The sangha is one thing and the org is another thing. Sometimes the board of directors is entirely monks. Then they control both. It depends on the monastery, vinaya practice, and structure.
You should also inform the monk if you donate and what he can do with it. Recently, someone made a donation, and did not inform the monk properly. Now he is afraid to use it. It is locked.
When giving requisites, the more you limit it, the less it will get used.
Giving specific vegetables is limited.
Giving requisites for food, is broader but limited.
Giving requisites is not limited. (but there should be an invitation for the monk to use it)
Giving to the general fund of the monastery is not limited, and usually separate from the monks’ personal use.
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I doubt if any of the monks actually intend for the atapirikara to be used. It’s a symbolic gift in a way. There is a real intention that by offering requisites it will help them to have the requisites as a monk in future lives.
I guess one could argue that if you offer crappy requisites it will only ensure that you get crappy requisites in the future. But good karma can also multiply things, so perhaps that’s how it works.
But for sure if someone is disappointed to hear that what they offered is not being used, then they must ask what is needed or give something more fungible than fresh veggies.
I think you mean.. “I doubt if any of the lay people intend for the atapirikara to be used.”
The main purpose of monks donating to the mahacetiya is to clean out the store room and not have guilt of selling the atapirikara although I know one monastery that had a meeting and they agreed to “use” those items (and other items we had in excess) for construction or something. I didn’t understand fully what they said, but they loaded up a truck afterwards.
If people want to donate robes.. it is best to donate robes.
If people want to donate a bowl, it is best to donate a bowl.
The stuff that is bundled together is usually fake (especially the ones covered in brown paper). However, some have real bowls in them. We usually save those.
However, I won’t take a sangha bowl. There is too much vinaya on this that I grew up with at pa-auk. Even pa-auk does not follow this anymore, but I’m old school pa-auk.
There is an issue with the bowl stand and the cover being garubhanda (heavy good). So I stay away from that. My bowl is from 2011 and from my brother.
No, I meant exactly what I said.
I think we will just have to agree to disagree.
Many times offerings are purely symbolic in terms of the items themselves. For example the completely useless but bejeweled sandals people offer when they are hoping for a vehicle.
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If you write something on the envelope, you might want to keep it as general as possible, so they can satisfy any need that may arise. Something like, “This is for any needs of the Saṅgha, such as food, or electricity, or anything else that may be needed.” This way they can easily apply it to anything they need to (for example, they may need a water pump, lawn equipment, as well as food, etc). I rejoice in your merit-making!!
To donate so much there must be a lot of non-attachment.
Here is some information on alobha (non-attachment) along with a brief teaching about it:
The Atthasālinī (I, Book I, Part IV, Chapter I, 127) gives the following definition of alobha :
. . . absence of greed (alobha ) has the characteristic of the mind being free from cupidity for an object of thought, or of its being detached, like a drop of water on a lotus leaf. It has the function of not appropriating, like an emancipated monk, and the manifestation of detachment, like a man fallen into a foul place. . .
The Visuddhimagga (XIV, 143) gives a similar definition².
When there is a moment of non-attachment there cannot be attachment at the same time. Non-attachment has the characteristic of non-adherence like a water drop on a lotus leaf. The lotus grows in the water but it is not wetted by the water, that is its nature. A drop of water glides off a lotus leaf without affecting it. So it is with non-attachment, alobha . It is not attached to the object which is experienced, it is unaffected by it. That is the nature of non-attachment. Sometimes there are conditions for non-attachment, but shortly afterwards we are affected again by objects. Through right understanding one will become less affected. We read in the Sutta Nipāta (Khuddaka Nikāya , The Group of Discourses, vs. 811-813,)³ :
. . . Not being dependent upon anything, a sage holds nothing as being pleasant or unpleasant. Lamentation and avarice do not cling to him, as water does not cling to a (lotus-)leaf.
Just as a drop of water does not cling to a (lotus-)leaf, as water does not cling to a lotus, so a sage does not cling to what is seen or heard or thought.
Therefore a purified one does not think that purity is by means of what is seen, heard, or thought, nor does he wish for purity by anything else⁴. He is neither impassioned nor dispassioned.
The function of non-attachment is, as we have seen, “not appropriating, like an emancipated monk”. A monk who has attained arahatship does not hold on to any object which presents itself; he is not enslaved but completely detached and thus free, emancipated.
The Atthasālinī states that non-attachment has the manifestation of detachment like someone who has fallen into a foul place. Someone who falls into a cesspool does not consider that a place of shelter where he could stay. He sees it as a danger, as something to be abhorred, and therefore he would get out of it as soon as possible. It is the same with non-attachment, it does not take refuge in what is actually a danger. Attachment to the objects which are experienced is dangerous, because attachment leads to all kinds of evil deeds which can produce an unhappy rebirth. Any form of attachment, even if it is more subtle, is dangerous, because so long as attachment has not been eradicated we are subject to rebirth and thus also to old age, sickness and death.
It is difficult to know the characteristic of non-attachment, since the moments of non-attachment are rare. We are often too lazy to do something for someone else; we are attached to our own comfort or to quiet. Or we may find some excuses: the weather is too cold or too hot to exert ourselves for someone else. However, when there are conditions for non-attachment, we do not care about tiredness or discomfort, we do not think of ourselves but we see the usefulness of helping someone else. We can learn from experience that non-attachment is beneficial both for ourselves and for others. At the moment of non-attachment we renounce our own pleasure and then there is peace of mind. It may seem that at a particular moment a choice between kusala and akusala can be made, but there is no self who makes a choice; each moment of citta is conditioned by many factors. It is not self but the cetasika alobha which performs the function of detachment. We cannot force ourselves to renounce sense-pleasures, but we can learn the difference between the characteristic of kusala and of akusala when they appear. Thus we will gradually see that kusala is beneficial and that akusala is not beneficial but harmful.
Footnotes:
¹ See The Roots of Good and Evil, p. 19, by Ven. Nyanaponika, The Wheel no. 251-253, B.P.S. Kandy.
² See also Dhammasangaṇi , par32.
³ I am using the P.T.S. translation by K.R. Norman.
⁴ By any other way than the Noble Eightfold Path, according to the commentary. See the Discourse Collection, Wheel Publication no. 82, B.P.S. Kandy.
—Cetasikas by Nina van Gorkom
https://www.abhidhamma.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Cetasikas.html#bookmark158
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